


a guardian riddle: how is a pigeon like the tower?

by bioluminesce



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Fluff without Plot, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-18 22:00:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22233835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioluminesce/pseuds/bioluminesce
Summary: Minutes of the Board of Commander Zavala's Crochet and Crafting ClubItem 1: Invitation of a guest
Comments: 15
Kudos: 66





	a guardian riddle: how is a pigeon like the tower?

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly for JenCforCarolina, who made a comment after Devil's Ruin about how Saint and the Titans should invite Eris to crochet club to talk about old times.

The former Speaker’s reception room became an activity room for the Vanguard after his death. Guardians would meet with Ikora Rey or Commander Zavala there, or use it for the unofficial but Vanguard-sponsored (i.e. Ikora had nodded in agreement to the idea once) book club. Wicker chairs and a long table provided convenience, while skylights let in natural sun and warmth. 

Eris Morn hesitated in the doorway. The Titans sat with their backs to her: Zavala folded over the clacking of knitting needles, Lord Saladin drinking something hot next to him, Lord Shaxx scooping cookies onto a plate on the other side of the room. Saint-14, ambling across the room with his own plate, was the first one to see her.

“Eris Morn!” He boomed her name and rushed toward her, one arm flung wide. His silver armor made him look even larger than his wide Exo frame already was. He had declined to wear his famous helmet, revealing silvery plating and ice-blue eyes. “Our favorite Guardian tells me you do not want hugs. I will honor this, but …” A graceful wave of his giant arm turned into a graceful return to the plate of cookies. “Let me know if you ever need.”

“My skin crawls,” Eris said. She watched for Saint to react with disgust to her tone, but he did not. Such a relief. Her truths were hard, these days, and she did not expect the Titans to stomach them. The invitation itself had been a surprise. She also found it courteous to let people know what to expect from the person she had become. “Touch reminds me too much of the creatures that crawl as well.”

“We will try to think of things other than that.” Saint’s thunderous voice held notes of scorn toward the Hive, which Eris respected. He did not belittle her pain. “I have a project for you, if you want it!” He moved around to one of the several empty chairs and scooped up a roll of blue yarn. 

Zavala turned around, his hands still occupied with the quick-clacking needles. “Eris.”

“Are you certain you welcome me? Again the Guardians whisper that I touch evil I should leave alone. I will not endure such whispers easily.” She hated to antagonize the Vanguard, but there was no way around it. And … 

The Titan Vanguard replied in just the way she had hoped he would. “You show us all an example of standing as a shield in front of others. Without you, the moon would be a more dangerous place. I hope you find that here, you do not have to shield your own heart.” 

The words sounded like a speech he had rehearsed ahead of time. Eris respected the thought if he had. This was also, she knew, how the commander typically addressed people. 

“Commander. Thank you for the invitation. While I have declined several times in the past, I found this timing … auspicious.” She glanced at the others. Saladin she knew the least, while she had spent the most time with Saint and Zavala. The days with Saint had been … centuries ago? 

“Because Saint is here?” Shaxx sat down, facing her over Zavala’s shoulder, with his plate of cookies. The chair creaked under his muscled and armored frame. “He and I were just talking about you. About how we haven’t fought together since the Great Hunt, and how perhaps that should change.” 

The Great Hunt. Eris remembered Ahamkara the size of buildings crashing down on fireteams … and the satisfaction of evading their meter-long claws, ignoring their tempting whispers, and piercing their violent hearts. She smiled. “It has been a long time since I faced a wish-dragon. Memories from … before … are fuzzy … but welcome all the same.” _Try. Try, Eris, to let them know you appreciate them._

Saint was waiting for her response, holding the yarn up in enthusiastic little swoops. “Eh…?” Saladin and Zavala both kept level gazes on her. Shaxx stared down at his cookies, reluctant to remove his helmet. 

“I brought something for you too.” Eris held out the satchel at her side. She plucked the Hive-leather roll from inside and partially unrolled it. The black beads inside glittered in the sunlight. It was strange to see them in bright Earth light instead of the gray-green murk of the moon. Eris had spent so much time working with stones like these, along with iron plates and incantations. Seeing them in the Tower for a moment seemed wrong, like bringing a painful shard of her new life into the wispy memories of her old. But with the sounds of the room—Saladin and Shaxx beginning a conversation, Saint creaking as his weight shifted—she was pulled into the present. These Titans—these old warriors—had wanted her to come here.

“Marvelous!” Saint said. He took the roll from her gently, his hands dwarfing hers. “Perhaps I will string them on the edges of my scarf!” 

They traded the beads for the yarn. Eris took a seat and was immediately surrounded by the conversation of Titans: Shaxx’s laughter, Saladin’s measured and wise words, Zavala quiet, concentrating on the gradually growing knitting in his lap. Words and warmth mingled. She watched the steam rise from cups. Saint talked about Osiris’ work on the Sundial. Zavala stooped under a heavy silence, once raising his head as if he was as heavy as a boulder to add his voice to the chorus of praise for the Guardians’ latest exploits. When conversation turned to the moon some eyes glanced at her, but none of them wanted to talk about the thing in the canyon.

“It was after the dragon of the equatorial desert, when we truly spoke last,” she muttered into the silence. 

“It was.” She could hear the smile in Shaxx’s voice. 

““Even before my ill-fated fire team began our task. The dragons were not as cruel as the Hive, but there is no purpose in measuring one suffering against another.” The words were laborious: she forced them out. 

“We’re old, Eris.” Saladin intoned the words, but then smiled to show he meant them to be soft. The “we” struck her: no one had counted her part of a group for a long, long time. “We could measure one era of life against another all day. Or, we can fight to live another day.”

“Titans.” Saint pressed his fist against his own chest. “Good at many things. Defending the City. Giving advice.” 

Eris picked up the yarn. “After such a long time, I have forgotten…”

“We were all beginners once,” Zavala said, and began to teach her the stitches.

* * *

Eris left with a thin string of knitting in her satchel. Saint looked to Shaxx after she left. Most of the cookies and tea were gone. The tone in the room had changed, from an informal meeting of the crocheters to a more somber Vanguard gathering. This was _not_ the public club, where Guardians mingled. This had been a meeting of specially chosen old warriors.   
  
“Splendid," Saint said. "She learns quickly.”

“I have to ask,” Saladin said. “How much of that was about getting her to return to the Tower, and how much was about _you_?”

“Both! Of course it is both. I am new to the Tower. She is new to the Tower. I was stranded in time. Dead, perhaps? I cannot remember. Strange not to remember thousands of years gone by in one death.” Saint shook his head. “Hah. Then I come back, discover she was stranded on the Moon. We are similar in this, I think.” He turned the black beads over and over. 

“I know Ikora invited her before,” the Vanguard Commander said from his chair. “She never took up that offer.”

“Ah! Then this is victory indeed.” Saint crowed. He remembered when Eris had leaned over to him, a few stitches loosely completed in her lap. 

_Zavala and Shaxx had been tensely asking one another if they could get the other anything, the old pain of their rivalry comfortably buried under enforced politeness that might one day mellow it into fondness. Saladin watched over them like a father. The signs that he still remembered them as Guardian recruits at Twilight Gap were clear. Both had been hard-living immortals even before the Gap, but Saladin’s conviction and skill at organizing troops had made him the foremost of Titans, and a template for what the nature of a Titan should be._

_“So, you have also returned from the dead," Eris had said, with humor. “Did you feel like you walked in the Tower as a ghost?”_

_Saint could be quiet when he wanted to be, especially under the voices of his compatriots. “After the Guardian brought me back, I, well … I had birds to take care of. They needed me to be alive. A ghost cannot hold seeds.”_

_Eris narrowed her eyes, scrunched her lips. Even with the top half of her face mostly obscured, it was easy to read her dissatisfied expression._

_Saint leaned closer. “Just like you take care of Guardians. Even when they make a mess.”_

_Eris smiled._

How was the moon like the snow of the gap? What did it matter to an immortal to lose the centuries he had lost, the years Eris had lost? Saint did not dwell. He watched the Titans begin their back-slapping, wall-rattling farewells, and looked down again at the minuscule beads in his palm, crafted by Eris’ clever hands. 

Victory indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> (saint-14 fought for both.)


End file.
